Friday grammar quiz

Today's theme: commonly misused words. I should warn here that in two of these cases, the answers are admittedly a bit subjective. These are pet peeves of mine. Not everyone would agree. But hey, it's my blog, innit? And that's what makes the world go round.

So identify the commonly misused word in each of these sentences:1. The police estimated that 10,000 attended the march, while the event's spokesman put the number at over 40,000.2. Buffy wanted to like basketball, but try as she might for Allen's sake, she simply could not overcome her utter disinterest in the game.3. Cordelia felt she faced a terrible Hobson's choice between Wesley, Giles and none of the above.

Answers below the fold. As always, no peeks.Answers:1. "over" is misused. I was taught in j-school that over means literally, physically on top of. With numbers and such, "more than" is correct.2. "disinterest" should be "uninterest." Or even "lack of interest." But the point is, disinterest doesn't mean has no curiosity about. Disinterest means having no investment in an outcome -- no interest in the sense of a betting interest or a rooting interest. Think of it this way: if you are appearing in court, you want the judge to be disinterest, but you certainly don't want her to be uninterested. Dictionaries are sometimes fudging this these days, just as sportscasters are failing to call out teams for running up the score. What happened to standards?3. Cordelia is choosing "among" three options, not "between" two. Between is used for two things, among for three or more.